Silliman University together with the British Council organised the first World Access to Higher Education (WAHED) Conference in Dumaguete City last 28 November 2018. The global event, organised by the National Education Opportunities Network (NEON) with support from the Northern Consortium (NCUK), aims to raise global awareness around inequalities in access to higher education and accelerate action.
Silliman University welcomed participants from universities within the Central Visayas Region and university-grantees of the British Council-CHED’s Joint Development of Niche Programmes (JDNP) project, which pioneered Transnational Education (TNE) partnerships between UK and the Philippines. Silliman University is one of the 11 universities that benefitted from the TNE project.
University leaders, faculty and students exchanged perspectives on education quality, student mobility, employability among others. A key part of the conference was a focus group discussion on institutional capacity building needs and emerging priorities for TNE. Perspectives from the discussions serve as inputs to the ongoing scoping study on next priorities for TNE which aims to assist CHED in setting up a more standardised processes and mechanisms for the development and delivery of TNE degrees in the country. The study is another collaboration between CHED and British Council and was facilitated by Dr Janet Ilieva, a UK TNE expert and selected JDNP project leads from Ateneo de Manila and University of the Philippines, Los Baños.